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Friday, April 26, 2013

Rethinking Religious Liberty

Rethinking Religious Liberty | Benjamin Wiker | Catholic World Report

Why religious liberty cannot mean the right to believe whatever we want.

In a previous article, “The Puzzle of Religious Liberty,” I brought before
readers a rather vexing quandary. Somehow our hearty affirmation of religious
liberty—which would seem to be a good thing—ends up producing a secular state
that uses its powers to enforce a secular agenda that contradicts our religious
liberty.

How does it happen? In order to limit
governmental interference in our religion, we declare that we each have a right
to define our own particular view about God and how we should—or if we
should—worship Him. Or Her. Or It.

But the practical result of our each individually
exercising this right is, as would be expected, to multiply religious
diversity. Catholics make up about a quarter of the US population, and
Protestants about double that, but Protestantism itself is divided into myriad
significantly distinct denominations. If you doubt that, go to the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life, and start clicking through the divisions
and subdivisions of Evangelical Protestant Churches or Mainline Protestant
Churches.

The greater the diversity, the greater the need
for particular religious believers or groups of like-minded believers to be
protected from the imposition of others’ beliefs upon them. Add to the
Christian mix Jews, Orthodox, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, and the
substantial differences in core beliefs become even greater.

In legal terms, the greater the religious
diversity, the greater the desire to keep any one religious view from becoming established, i.e., from using the powers of the state to
impose its particular doctrines. Hence, the greater power given to the
government to ensure that no one’s
religious beliefs are represented by the government. In America, the result has
been the use of government power to subtract
particular religious beliefs from public, political view.